We are struck, fourthly, on examining these advertisements farther, with other external marks and appearances, different from the former, on the persons of these runaway slaves. The following extracts from the Gazette will inform us sufficiently on this subject.

Dolly, a Creole, 4 feet 11 inches, has a scar between her shoulders and on left temple.

Duncan Macpherson, a Nago (African), 5 feet 7 inches, has a blotched mark on his shoulders.

James, a Creole, 5 feet 3 inches, has large scars on his back and breast.

Robert Edwards, a Creole, 5 feet 93 inches, marked apparently IW on_right shoulder, and has a scar on left cheek and forehead.

Smart, a Creole man, before mentioned to have had brand-marks, and also a rivetted iron collar on, is further described as "having a sore on the small of the right leg.

William Alexander, a Creole, 5 feet 6 inches, has several scars on his upper lip. John, a Congo, has large scars on his shoulders, apparently from a brand-mark, and a scar on his forehead.

Mary, a Mungola, 5 feet 2 inches, marked apparently IB on right shoulder, has a small scar under her right eye, and scars near the outer part of each ancle-joint. George, a Mungola, (African) 5 feet 94 inches, no brand-mark, has a scar on the inner part of his left leg, on shin, and on his forehead.

Sammy, a Creole boy, 4 feet 8 inches, no brand-mark, has a scar on his throat. George, a Creole, 5 feet 2 inches, has no brand-mark, has a scar on his forehead, on left eye-brow, and under right eye, a large scar on right outer ancle-joint, and a small scar on left shin.

Henry, a Creole, 6 feet, marked apparently ER on left shoulder, has a scar between his eyes, and near the right temple, and on left shin, and above the left inner ancle-joint, and has lost the right great toe-nail.

George, a Creole, 5 feet 5 inches, no brand-mark. The forefinger of his right hand is bent downwards, has a large scar near the top of the right arm, and another on his forehead, about the left eyebrow.

Frank, a Creole, 5 feet, 51 inches, no brand-mark, has a scar on the left shin. Thomas James, a Creole man, 5 feet 93 inches, marked RC on the left shoulder, has scars on his ships, the first joint of the finger next the thumb of the left hand injured and crooked.

William, a young Creole man, 5 feet 43 inches, marked SB on shoulders, and has a blotch on the right breast.

Tom (before described to have been cruelly branded), has a sore on the small of his left leg, and some of his upper teeth are lost.

John, a Creole, 5 feet 9 inches, no brand-mark, has scars on eyebrows and between the eyes, and one of his upper front teeth is lost.

Robert Ellis, an Eboe (African), 5 feet 54 inches, mark not plain on left shoulder, has a scar above his right instep, and in the middle of his forehead, and his right upper front tooth is lost.

Billy (before mentioned to have been cruelly branded, and to have had marks of flogging on his back), is farther described to "have lost some of his teeth."

John, a Creole, 5 feet 94 inches, no brand-mark, has scars on eyebrows, and between his eyes, and one of his left upper front teeth is lost.

Quamin, a Creole, 4 feet 11 inches, no brand-mark, his right upper front teeth, and a part of the fourth and fifth toes of his left foot are lost.

Simon, a Mungola, 5 feet 4 inch, marked apparently WR, heart on top, on left shoulder, many of his front teeth are lost.

John, a Creole, 5 feet 3 inches, mark not plain on left shoulder, lost his left upper front tooth, and has a bump on left shin.

Caroline Lewis, a Creole, 5 feet inch, lost her right upper front teeth.

George, a Creole, 5 feet 64 inches, one of his lower, and two upper front teeth are lost, and his right little finger bent downwards.

David Nugent, a Creole, 5 feet 6 inches, marked TB on shoulders, some of his upper and lower front teeth are lost.

Mary, a Mungola, 5 feet 2 inches, mark not plain on left shoulder, has lost the sight of her left eye, and nearly all her teeth.

Hardluck, a Creole, 5 feet 5 inches, marked apparently C or G reversed, a part of the second toe of his left foot, and his right upper front tooth are lost.

Dick, a young Creole boy, 4 feet 7 inches, no brand-mark, has lost the first joint of the thumb of his left hand.

James, a Moco, the first joint of the fore finger of his left hand is lost.

Richard, a Creole, 5 feet an inch, has his left great toe crooked.

Here then is a long list of runaways (runaways from comfort) in the same Gazette, with marks and appearances on their persons, different from the former, by which their owners may know them again, when they are lodged in prison. Now, with respect to some of these marks or appearances, such as those occasioned by the loss of sight, or of teeth, or of fingers, or of toes, I shall leave the reader, in a great measure, to form his own conjectures. They may possibly have been the result of accident or disease. But what, if the Slaves' teeth should have ever been knocked out by owners or overseers in fits of passion! Let our opponents account for such appearances more satisfactorily, if they can. With respect to the other marks mentioned, they are described either as scars, or as sores, or as blotches upon the flesh. But how were these scars, sores, and blotches produced? We have reason to conclude, upon the authority of the Gazette itself, that some of the scars were the result of those painful burnings, by the application of heated iron letters to the skin, which have been before mentioned; for it is expressly said of John, the Congo, when he is advertised, "that he had sears on his shoulders, apparently from a brand-mark." We have reason to conclude again, upon the same authority, that others of these scars had been made by the whip; for Harriet, whose case I have noticed before, is advertised thus: "Has no brandmark, but has scars on her back and stomach from flogging." With respect to the rest of these scars, and to those other marks, which are comprehended under the denomination of sores and blotches, there can be no doubt, where these are found upon the throat, or neck, or near the ancle-joints (of which we have given several instances in the preceding list), that they were generally the result of excoriations from the friction of iron collars, leg-irons, stocks, &c. Now, if we sum up the whole;

if we add this last list of runaways from comfort to those before given, and to what else we may be able to pick up from the Gazette; we shall find about forty in the hundred of persons advertised in one Gazette, marked, or disfigured, or maltreated in the different ways described. Can such a proportion of mutilated, abused, persons be found any where, in an equal number of men and women, except among slaves? Can we imagine, that, if one hundred of our labourers or servants in Great Britain were taken into custody, as they came on a market-day into any town, and stripped and examined, we should be able to find such a number of defects, excoriations, excrescences, wounds, and injuries upon their persons? But if this account from the Royal Jamaica Gazette of a single week, be so disgusting of itself, how afflicting, how appalling might it be made, if a person were to sit down with his pen in his hand, and add to it similar extracts from the other fifty-one gazettes (no one of which has been noticed by me) for the other fifty-one weeks in the year! I am sure he would make a volume, which, if it did not stagger the faith of his readers, would fill them with horror. Yes, it would fill them with horror, and with astonishment too, if they should but chance to reflect that these enormities were perpetrated by persons who considered themselves to be Britons, and to whom you could not give a greater offence, than to tell them that they were not Christians; and I know not at which the reader would be most astonished, whether at the depravity which continued such a cruel system, or at the audacity which could defend it by comparing the condition of our British labourers with that of our colonial slaves.

I have now brought forward every fact which I intended to extract from the Royal Gazette of Jamaica, from Saturday June the 14th to Saturday June the 21st, 1823, in order to refute the argu

ment, that "the slaves in our colonies were better off than the labourers of Great Britain itself;" and I think I have said enough to satisfy all candid men that it is false. But "hold!" says an objector: you have taken but a partial view of the argument. The slaves in the colonies may perhaps be said to be better lodged, clothed, and fed than the peasantry of the mother country, and you have not said a word about this in the comparison." It would be an easy task to disprove these assumptions; but I do not now say a word about them, because, when I undertook to refute the argument, I undertook to refute it from the Gazette, and the Gazette only. Now, as the Gazette says nothing upon these new points, I can of course collect no specific answer concerning them from that quarter. But the argument has nevertheless been fully answered, and this from the Gazette itself, though it contains nothing upon the points in question. I trust it has been shewn, that if the slaves in the British colonies should be supposed (and an extravagant supposition it would be) to be ever so well lodged, clothed, and fed, they are yet infinitely worse off than our British peasants: for though it may be very agreeable to sleep on a bed of down, instead of sleeping on a hard board; to have plenty of choice victuals, instead of coarse and scanty fare; and to wear good clothes, instead of being nearly naked, or clothed with rags; I cannot allow, either that soft lodging, or good eating and drinking, or fine clothing, form the principal enjoyments of a human being. A mind undisturbed by present or apprehended evils is worth all these pleasures put together. Indeed, what is it that constitutes the best part of a man's happiness? It is liberty. It is personal protection. It is the unmolested enjoyment of his family and home. It is the due appreciation of him as a citizen and a human being. It is the sympathy

of his fellow-creatures. It is the freedom and enjoyment of religious exercises. It is hope, blessed hope, that balm and solace of the mind. These and the like, are the principal component parts of the happiness of a rational being. Tell a man that he shall be richly clothed, delightfully lodged, and luxuriously fed; but that, in exchange for all this, he must be the absolute property of another; that he must no longer have a will of his own; that to identify him as property, he may have to undergo the painful and degrading operation of being branded on the flesh with a hot iron; that he will be looked upon rather as a brute than as a man; that he may have to wear an iron collar, or an iron chain, and may be whipped and scarred at the discretion of his master; that, if his said master should get into debt, so as not to be able to satisfy his creditors, he himself must be sold, and his wife and children also; and that they may be sold separately, by which act they may probably be separated for ever from each other. Now tell him all this (for, as far as all these points go, the Gazette will bear me out), and do you think that he would hesitate one moment as to the choice to make? Would he not instantly break out into these or similar exclamations? "I prefer lying at my ease on a bed of straw, to lying on a bed of down, with an iron collar on my neck to grate it. I would rather forego fine clothing, than wear a chain, or fetters which would take the skin and flesh from my ancles. I would rather give up the pleasure of luxurious eating and drinking, than have a smarting back." Try the experiment: ask any man or woman in England to serve you on these terms, and give them wages to boot. They would spurn your offer, your meat and your drink and your clothing and your wages: they would spurn them all with indignation. I should be glad to know what our peasants would think or say, if they were to be in

formed of the wretched condition of our colonial slaves, item by item, in all the melancholy particulars, as I have extracted them from the Jamaica Gazette; or what they would think or say, if they were informed, that they themselves had been classed by certain writers as below these very slaves. I doubt not that these British peasants, these lower than the lowest of the earth, would be so shocked at the sufferings of these colonial slaves, that they would consider them as the most abused of all Gods creatures. Yes; they would consider their sufferings to be so great in variety and extent, that they would absolutely lose sight of their own; and you would find them giving way to the most generous compassion; and so shocked at the barbarity of the colonial masters, that they would break out into exclamations of indignation against them. And with respect to the comparison made between their own condition and that of the colonial slaves, I am of opinion they could not be brought to believe that such a comparison could ever have been made: for they would naturally say at once," We know that we cannot be sold. We know that we are neither looked upon nor treated as beasts. We know that no employer can brand us with a hot iron, or put an iron collar on our necks, or make us work in chains, or whip us at his pleasure. We know that our domestic endearments and enjoyments are our own; and that the king himself cannot separate us from our wives and children, so long as we are obedient to the laws." Happy, happy, British peasants, who can hold such language with truth! May you always be able to hold the same language! and may you be for ever exempt from the comforts of colonial slavery!

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. HAVING observed several valuable articles in your widely-circulated

miscellany, on the subject of educating the unfortunate deaf and dumb;-in particular, one in your volume for 1818, p. 514, "On the Expediency of teaching the Deaf and Dumb to articulate;" and another by a nameless correspondent, in reply to that article, in the same volume, p. 787;-permit me to offer a few observations on the subject. It may, perhaps, be too late to reply specifically to any paper of so old a date: but as the subject is highly important, and your readers have lately had their attention recalled to it by a proposal for educating the deaf and dumb throughout the kingdom, by means of national and other schools, I trust a few remarks upon the general question may not be uninteresting ; and as your correspondent for December 1818, has urged the usual arguments on his side of the controversy, I shall take leave to notice his leading principles.

The subject claims the attention of every thinking mind; and I am happy to find that so much exertion has been manifested throughout Great Britain, as will in a few years be the means of educating all the deaf and dumb, in common with other children, at a trifling expense. So long as the deaf and dumb are taught utterance, the system of delusion which has been supported and upheld by the crafty, and imposed on the credulous at the Deaf and Dumb Asylums, will continue. To teach the deaf and dumb to speak is as unnatural as to teach a parrot. If it were impossible for the dumb to reason without learning to speak, I would cordially agree with the advocates for the propriety of teaching them utterance; but the all-wise Providence never intended them to speak, any more than that the blind should see, without His all-sufficient power. If to give the dumb their mother tongue would alone remove ignorance, how is it that some men who can speak are so ignorant as to attempt to prove, that by teaching the deaf and dumb

to speak they immediately become rational beings; when it is evident that speech alone can never teach them a language, and without a language the deaf and dumb must for ever remain little better than the brute creation? Does it not then clearly prove, that to teach them a language is the first, and ever will be the only, means by which they can become rational beings? This may lead to an inquiry; How are they to be taught a language? Not by speech, but by their own natural language of signs, which they can exercise so plainly as to enable those around them to understand all their wants, all their affections, and all their feelings. Signs were the first natural language of us all, and signs must ever continue to be the language of the deaf. Give them a language explanatory of their own signs, and of such as may be made to them, "they are no longer alone in the social circle; they are enlivened by" (written or manual signs)" conversation, instructed by the page of history, enlightened and comforted by the records of Eternal Truth, and are in every view elevated to the rank of their fellow-beings. All this I maintain is accomplished by the plain, rational, and practicable method of teaching them the language of the country where they happen to be situated;" but not by giving them what is of no use to them, a mother tongue. I am at a loss to understand what your correspondent meant when he said, "that we came to the possession of our mother tongue solely by the reiteration of those names (words or phrases) being made intelligible to tos, through the medium of the organ of hearing." Did he mean to signify that, the moment we heard the first sound of the human voice, we knew the meaning of the word uttered, and that solely by the reiteration of words or phrases we knew the signification of each? If this is really what he means (and I am at a loss to interpret his meaning in any other

manner), our eyes are useless. Now as this sort of argument may serve to amuse ninety-nine out of one hundred who have never given the subject the least consideration, although they have subscribed their money to institutions they knew nothing about, I shall endeavour to shew the fallacy of such an argument, and that the deaf and dumb are not taught any thing by speech alone. So long as the deaf possess their sight, which is superior to all the other senses, they can comprehend every thing when they know a language; which brings me again to the grand question, How are they to be taught a language? Not like children who can hear, speak, and see, but like children who are deaf and dumb, but possess the sense of sight. It is somewhat extraordinary that men who can hear and see should for one moment suppose that the former sense is more useful and beneficial than the latter. I have read of such fallacious writers; but who were they? The very persons interested in the support of the asylums for teaching the dumb to speak. It is by this sort of magic alone that the asylums have been supported in this country, which has not only been the cause of great torture and pain to the learners, but produced in them a disagreeable distortion of features, which, together with their unpleasant discordant sounds, render their society extremely painful to all who hear them.

Let us then examine closely into the situation of both the fortunate and unfortunate. Children who can hear and see learn a language by means of both senses; and after they have learnt to talk, and can do so pretty well, they are sent to school where they have another language to learn,—that is, to read and write. The poor unfortunate deaf children who can see do not require to be taught a spoken language; for, having their sight from as early a period as other children, they will understand and reason upon the different objects